Strengthening Student Learning for Success in College, Career and Civic Life

Deeper Learning and Diffusion of Innovation and Scaled Impact

New Hampshire offers innovative, successful approaches in competency-based and deeper learning practices, and is a model for other states to follow. That’s why JFF (also known as Jobs for the Future), a national nonprofit, is partnering with the NH Learning Initiative, the NH Department of Education, and the Center for Innovation in Education to understand how work-study practices are being adopted and scaled across the state. We are seeking to understand how certain professional development opportunities impact teachers’ and students’ experiences as they learn to develop, use and assess work-study practices in classrooms.

Why we are doing this:

Research suggests that when students learn specific work-study practices connected to communication, creativity, collaboration, and self-directed learning, they are more likely to experience success in college, career and civic life.

Who is involved:

We are a collaboration of researchers, leaders, and professional development providers with a strong track record of working collaboratively and productively with teachers and districts.

What we are doing:

We are embarking on a series of data collection and analysis activities designed to strengthen and scale research-proven practices to meet the needs of all New Hampshire’s teachers and students.

Where we are working:

Classrooms and districts that are engaged in the PACE system and who have volunteered to be part of this research project.

When it is happening:

May 2018 - January 2021

How we are operating:

We want to understand how work-study practices are being implemented and scaled so we can help NH and other states build the capacity needed to fully adopt and adapt best practices. Consequently, we will be combining state collected PACE data on work study practices with teacher surveys and student focus groups to understand how student outcomes at the classroom level relate to student and teacher experiences in those classrooms. We are interested in what is embedded in classroom practice data vs. what is part of classroom activities and assessments. Please note: the study is neither connected to teacher performance evaluations nor will data be used to assess individual student learning outcomes.

Our key research questions:

1. Do PACE districts that are integrating WSPs demonstrate better student outcomes overall than PACE districts that are not integrating WSPs?
2. Do PACE districts that are integrating WSPs demonstrate better student outcomes for ELLs, students with disabilities, students from low-SES families, and other disadvantaged or marginalized groups, than those PACE districts that are not integrating WSPs?
3. To what extent does the invitational, collaborative, learner-centered, and embedded process of co-developing WSP tasks influence its diffusion and scale in three years?

What we see as drivers of change: